The simple and maybe the correct answer is that Donald Trump did better in the 14th congressional district than the 6th.
But there was another difference in their campaigns.
Jim Oberweis managed to paint Democrat Lauren Underwood as an extremist and Jeanne Ives did not do the same with Sean Casten.
While not using the word “extremist” often in describing Underwood, the Oberweis television and direct mail campaigns closely tied her to the rioting in American cities.
Jeanne Ives had one mailing I found pointing to Sean Casten’s extremism.
And it did not come from her campaign.
It came from Restoration PAC of Downers Grove.
Had I been crafting Ives’ messages about Casten, the extremism label would have been everywhere.
While using the word in the Restoration PAC, the comparison is much too mild on abortion.
Casten, as virtually all Democratic candidates and officials, believe that a baby should be subject to abortion until it is born.
My television ad recommendation would have shown a baby during gestation with a woman saying something like this:
We probably don’t agree when what we are watching becomes a baby.
But we all know it’s before it is born.
Sean Casten supports the right of a woman to abort her child up to the day before birth.
That is truly extreme.
My argument is that only a relative small percentage of women believe in a right to abortion that is so extreme.
What?
Ten percent?
I believe that most women who have had a child would agree with the statement above and conclude that Casten’s position really is too extreme.
But, we will never know because Republican candidates are too timid to test my hypothesis.
They would rather follow the Establishment Republican consultants’ advice, which is to ignore the issue, except with those who have been identified as Pro-Life.
And, then the consultants are not even astute enough to follow the proven example of the pro-abortion Personal PAC.
Personal PAC calls every women and asks if they favor the right to choose.
That gives them a list to send information like you see below:
McSweeney fought back and won.
I believe both Ives and Oberweis would have done much better had they not shied from the abortion issue, but rather taken the attack to their opponents.
1) I think that Underwood is going to end up winning this race, but…
2) You named the most obvious reason that CD14 and CD6 are going to finish differently, but then went on to pretend that it was for a different reason.
Underwood is going to do worse than Casten because CD14 is less Democratic than CD6.
We’ll have to wait to see what the final numbers look like, but I suspect that Biden will have done significantly better in CD6 than CD14, and we’ll likely see very close parallels between the Biden numbers and the Underwood/Casten numbers.
I think that you are both kind of right. IL14 is more Republican than IL6.
However, the way you change that is exactly as stated. Most Americans pay little attention to politics and vote for party out of habit.
If you expose the democrats for who they really are that can be changed.
And yes as a party the democrats are no longer just pro choice, they are now pro abortion.
They are also pro riots and anti police.
All of this should be pushed to the extreme by any conservative candidate.
I can assure you that if the GOP goes hard on abortion in CD6 they will lose ground.
There is very much a reason that Jeanne Ives didn’t use abortion as a core message.
CD14 isn’t as clear cut, but still more pro-choice than anti-choice.
And Alabama, why should we listen to these polls that I’m guessing you are basing your statement on?
Regardless of who wins the presidential election one thing is perfectly clear from this election, the polls are garbage.
Besides how many people who are “pro choice” as you call it would still be so if they were shown what they are actually supporting with late term abortions.
Not many I would guess.
This is another area where the democrats want to use the media machine to convince everyone a position is popular when it isn’t.
At this point, either candidate is basically disposable and it doesn’t matter if you see my theory of what’s really going on in the other thread on the subject:
http://mchenrycountyblog.com/2020/11/05/il14returns/#comment-562287
We might not know for months.
Abortion is allowed federally.
Why is it such an issue locally? 🤔😮
Path to 270
There is still a pathway to victory for President Trump and the outstanding ballot math to back it up.
North Carolina is safely on board for President Trump.
In Arizona, our data showed we would keep cutting into Dems lead and we have. President Trump is on pace to win Arizona.
In the latest batch of votes tallied, President Trump received the share he needs to win the state.
Many of the ballots that are outstanding we know are our Election Day voters.
The calling of this race was way too early and are absolutely continuing to monitor Arizona and the developments on the ground there.
Fox News and the AP should retract their call, even Nate Silver agrees.
Not expecting a release of numbers until 10PM ET today.
The Trump campaign has declared victory in Pennsylvania.
The current outstanding margin in Pennsylvania is over 108,000 votes. While there are still outstanding ballots in Philadelphia and Montgomery County, votes in Trump areas including York and Allegheny still need to be counted.
There are about 369,300 votes left to be counted.
This morning, the Trump campaign won a massive legal victory in Pennsylvania. Appellate court in PA guarantees there will be eyes on all ballots being counted.
In a huge victory for election integrity, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania sided with the RNC and Trump campaign in the challenge to Secretary Boockvar’s unlawful deadline extension for absentee voters to provide missing proof of identification.
The court has enforced the proper statutory deadline and ordered that those ballots be segregated and not counted.
The American people deserve transparency and openness as votes are being counted and this legal victory will ensure that occurs.
We still feel good about the eventual margin in Georgia.
In Nevada, we can expect additional legal news today. the current margin is about 11,000 votes and there have been a number of reports of over fraud. We will ensure all legal votes are counted.
We have filed for a recount in Wisconsin.
We are committed to ensuring all legal votes in Michigan are counted.
We have thousands of volunteer lawyers at the ready in these and other battleground states, and our efforts will continue until election results up and down the ticket are final.
This fight is not over.
President Trump will continue to fight for us, and we will continue to fight for him.
People on both sides seem to be unable to see the bigger picture. It’s not red vs. blue but is about self preservation.
They all want Trump out. They also want to give Creepy Joe the boot as well. He’s beyond help and is completely disposable.
He’s already been retired and has been living in the basement all year and barely made any campaign events. Just needed to keep the blue Boomers mailing in their ballots to try to save the House.
Some Guy, surely that’s true, but Trump and Biden were the major choices. 😐
No matter how the presidential race turns out this election was a complete disaster for the democrats.
We were told for months Biden was way ahead and a blue wave is coming.
Instead GOP picks up house seats, holds the senate and picks up all sorts of state level seats across the nation just in time for redistricting.
Even if Trump lost the battle, he drove a huge wedge into the democrats that will be hard for them to recover from.
Just sit back and watch as the progressives say the party didn’t go far enough left while the moderates who barely held their seats blame the progressives.
He may also have dealt a huge blow to the GOP but that depends on what they do.
The MAGA movement he started is not going to just go away and will continue to influence races in the future.
“as virtually all Democratic candidates and officials, believe that a baby should be subject to abortion until it is born”
-Cal Skinner
Really Cal?
Name two.
This is just as bad as Dems saying that Roe v Wade will be overturned, so vote for them.
The two sides are simply two different sides of the same authoritarian coin.
Hopefully, Libertarians will take this place over and escort the Dems and Reps out.
Ives is a lifetime loser. Time to give up
Watching is navel gazing again.
How about every candidate endorsed by Personal PAC.
I have published the questionnaire in years past, which you can probably find if you search the blog.
They don’t endorse people who favor restrictions on abortions.
I will say this as a politically-Independent Patriot who grew up in Coral Twp.
Basic lack of local neighborhood Republican political presence, organizing and outreach are a significant factor in weak GOTV efforts for *all* Republican candidates in McHenry County, but especially for the southeastern quadrant of the county, which means IL 06 (Ives) and IL-66th (Skillicorn).
I will leave aside here the apparent refusal of IL-33rd State Senator Don DeWitte, and failed IL-66th primary candidate Carolyn Schofield to graciously concede and, to publicly endorse, fundraise and actively campaign for Jeanne Ives and Allen Skillicorn. (squishy, can’t-be pinned-down, speaks-out-of-both-sides-of-mouth, spineless liberal moderate jellyfish refusing to be seen with, or be seen supporting, firm constitutionalist pro-2A, pro-life conservative patriots with spines and guts). Plus the obvious bashing of Allen Skillicorn on this website, which also put a drag on Jeanne Ives as a result of the appearance of Republican infighting & cognitive dissonance. But this is for another discussion.
The McHenry County Republican Party has morphed from a broad-based, grassroots-up, county-wide organization into a largely top-down, shallow county presence that is run by a relatively small, aging and technologically weak group of controlling and intensely-involved leaders & a few activists, who are becoming increasingly disconnected from local families, and disengaged in communication with the general citizenry.
Precincts populated by lower-income earners, and urban districts, are increasingly neglected and abandoned by Republicans, resulting in territory being ceded to Democrats and Democrat-leaners who have moved in.
Republican votes are coming from the relatively large-landed rural farmland families, who are sparsely distributed. Democrat votes are coming from the relatively small-holding densely-settled urban cities & villages and adjacent suburban housing developments. The latter include the townhome, condominium, and apartment complexes snugged round commercial districts.
It is clear from the emerging various 2020 general election results maps that Democrats control the densely-populated cities, where the bulk of political campaign & organizing activity occurs in the county. Here, political campaigns & party volunteers & activists can GOTV relatively easily by walking the precinct and knocking on doors. Republican votes from a relatively disengaged rural citizenry, where it takes real effort, a lot of time, cars & gas money to GOTV in person.
Vacancies in Grafton and Algonquin Township precinct Republican committeeman positions is very important. No precinct committeeman…no precinct captain…no political communication…no political representation. If there is no Republican presence in the precinct, then there will be no Republican votes, unless the candidate can afford to visit the precinct personally.
In other words, the McHenry County Republican Party seems to expect candidate political campaigns to do all the work, and to finance everything, rather than the McHCoGOP doing the bulk of the grunt work, and providing a functional and effective county-wide platform, so that a candidate gets grassroots support, and can concentrate his or her energies on the most important campaign tasks that must be conducted in-person, such as meeting with prominent community members so as to be able to secure endorsements.
Below are the Republican precinct committeeman vacancies, as currently displays on the McHCo government website under “political parties”. LOOK AT THE SHEER NUMBER OF VACANCIES. Please note that the information on the webpage is out of date and contains typos. For example, the chair is still listed as Diane Evertsen, and Karen Girl’s email address is wrong. So good luck trying to contact the party if you are interested in getting involved, or want to learn about how the McHCoGOP is organized, and get further information!
From https://www.mchenrycountyil.gov/county-government/county-yearbook/political-parties
MCHENRY COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY PRECINCT COMMITTEEMAN VACANCIES
GRAFTON TOWNSHIP:
GRAFTON 1 – Michael Skala
GRAFTON 2 – VACANT
GRAFTON 3- Frank Haslwanter
GRAFTON 4 -Orville Brettman
GRAFTON 5 – Jeffrey T Thorsen
GRAFTON 6 – John T. Davis (APPT)
GRAFTON 7 – Fredrick W. Wickham
GRAFTON 8 – Carolyn Schofield
GRAFTON 9 – VACANT
GRAFTON 10 – Daniel Rooney
GRAFTON 11 – VACANT
GRAFTON 12 – VACANT
GRAFTON 13 – Shannon L Teresi
GRAFTON 14 – VACANT
GRAFTON 15 – VACANT
GRAFTON 16 – VACANT
GRAFTON 17 – VACANT
GRAFTON 19 – VACANT
GRAFTON 20 – VACANT
GRAFTON 21 – VACANT
GRAFTON 22 – Troy C. Owens
GRAFTON 23 – VACANT
GRAFTON 24 – Charles F. Hoffman
GRAFTON 25 – VACANT
GRAFTON 26 – Joseph Camp
GRAFTON 27 – VACANT
GRAFTON 28 – Tom Poznanski
GRAFTON 29 – VACANT
GRAFTON 30 – VACANT
GRAFTON 31- VACANT
ALGONQUIN TOWNSHIP:
ALGONQUIN 1 – Melissa Sanchez
ALGONQUIN 2 – Thomas Venezio
ALGONQUIN 3 – Robert de Palma
ALGONQUIN 4 – Danijela Sandberg (APPT)
ALGONQUIN 5 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 6 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 7 – Cal Skinner Jr.
ALGONQUIN 8 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 9 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 10 – Donna Kurtz
ALGONQUIN 11- Maureen Huff
ALGONQUIN 12 – Jim Cosler
ALGONQUIN 13 – Rita M Heuel
ALGONQUIN 14 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 15 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 16 – Lou Anne Majewski
ALGONQUIN 17 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 18 – Mary Cardelli
ALGONQUIN 19 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 20 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 21 – Rachael Lawrence
ALGONQUIN 22 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 23 – Jacqueline Penze
ALGONQUIN 24 – John O’Neill (APPT)
ALGONQUIN 25 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 26 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 27 – Robert Gibbons
ALGONQUIN 28 – Debra Ebert
ALGONQUIN 29 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 30 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 31- VACANT
ALGONQUIN 32 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 33 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 34 – Peter Suffield (APPT)
ALGONQUIN 35 – John Pletz
ALGONQUIN 36 – Cameron Hubbard
ALGONQUIN 37 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 38 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 39 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 40 – Peggy Pirovano
ALGONQUIN 41 – Rodney Covenah
ALGONQUIN 42 – Theresa Fronczak (APPT)
ALGONQUIN 43 – Sandra “Sandy” Robertson
ALGONQUIN 44 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 45 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 46 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 47 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 48 – Diego Flores (APPT)
ALGONQUIN 49 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 50 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 51 – Eileen Marhoefer
ALGONQUIN 52 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 53 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 54 – Gary Mader
ALGONQUIN 55 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 56 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 57 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 58 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 59 – Scott Taillet
ALGONQUIN 60 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 61 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 62 – Glen Swanson
ALGONQUIN 63 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 64 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 65 – John Bobrytzke (APPT)
ALGONQUIN 66 – Lisa M Ryan
ALGONQUIN 67 – VACANT
ALGONQUIN 68 – VACANT
The list of precinct committeemen must be fro 2018, since John Reinert is now PC in Algonquin 7.